Сентябрь 2006 г.

Российская наука и мир (по материалам зарубежной электронной прессы)

CONTENTS / ОГЛАВЛЕНИЕ


• Is The Golden Age Of Russian Space Science Still Ahead
• Gelatin Treats Ulcer
• Clouds: round-the-clock diagnosis
• Laser striking the tumor: new outlook
• Russian scientists eye cooperation
• US-Russia effort to contain nuclear experts fades
• Russian Academy Faces Tighter Control
• French Commissariat on Nuclear Energy considers Tomsk region to be prospective for its projects' realization
• Global warming experts gather in Leicester
• What Comes From The Sky?
• Aboard Or Over The Board?

Российско-американская программа Nuclear Cities Initiative (NCI), начавшаяся в 1998 году и направленная на создание гражданских предприятий и новых рабочих мест для российских ученых-ядерщиков, живущих в до сих пор "закрытых" бывших советских "наукоградах", может закончить свое действие в ближайшее время, причем по инициативе российской стороны. Основные причины - улучшения в российской экономике, позволяющие справиться с проблемой закрытых городов самостоятельно, и растущие опасения, что США получат доступ к секретным ядерным программам.

MOSCOW AND BOSTON - At a Moscow conference in 2000 on stopping the global migration of nuclear-weapons know-how, a Russian security official revealed that Taliban envoys had tried to recruit a Russian nuclear expert.
That expert didn't go to work for the Afghan regime. But three of his colleagues did leave their institute for other nations - and Russian officials had no idea which ones, US experts say.
With the threat of nuclear terrorism looming large in a post-9/11 world, the brain drain of Russian nuclear expertise is an even more critical concern than it was six years ago, many say. Yet a unique 1998 US-Russian partnership to offer new opportunities and skills to destitute Russian nuclear specialists living in remote former-Soviet "science cities" is set to expire Friday unless last-minute diplomacy saves it.
A stronger Russian economy and growing wariness of US access to sensitive nuclear programs has dampened Moscow's enthusiasm for the Nuclear Cities Initiative (NCI) program, as has a three-year wrangle with Washington over legal liability issues, observers say.
"It will be a great pity if this program dies, because it really had an impact around here," says Yuri Yudin, a former atomic scientist who heads the Analytical Center for Nonproliferation in the closed city of Sarov, one of several NCI-funded projects. "The objective was to create nonmilitary businesses and new jobs that could become self-sustaining, and it had considerable success. But the task is far from finished."
Others say losing the program would be another "unsettling sign" of erosion in US-Russia nuclear security cooperation.
"If we eliminate this program we will be losing a major nonproliferation agreement," says Kenneth Luongo, executive director of the Russian-American Nuclear Security Advisory Council, a nuclear nonproliferation group in Washington.
Ten Russian cities - mainly linked to nuclear weapons and missile research - remain "closed" today, even to Russians who lack special permission. The closed nature of the cities became traps for some of the estimated 35,000 Russian scientists who needed work after the Soviet Union's collapse. For these scientists, who live under security surveillance, jobs needed to be created in the closed cities.
The tiny NCI program, which has helped 1,600 scientists in its existence, has been folded into a much larger DOE effort that employs more than 13,000 Russian scientists with grant funding. But NCI is unique in its focus on job creation in closed cities by converting existing nuclear complexes into other businesses, such as computer centers, US officials say.
"If you put the money through different channels, it's not the same," Mr. Luongo says. "The program's underpinnings and momentum ... are lost."
The head of Russia's nuclear agency RosAtom, Sergei Kiriyenko, is slated to meet US Department of Energy chief Samuel Bodman in Vienna this week in an eleventh-hour chance to save the program.
"It [NCI] has been definitely a useful tool, a unique way to work with Russian WMD scientists and engineers," says Bryan Wilkes, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration that administers NCI.
Not everyone agrees the program is still needed. Valentin Ivanov, a member of the Russian parliament's energy committee, says that while there's still plenty of room for US-Russian cooperation on nuclear disarmament, the problems of the closed cities are a "domestic matter" that Moscow now has the means to address.
"We thank the US for its help, which was greatly needed in the 1990s," he says. "But this is a new time, Russia has a budget surplus now, and [US help] is not necessary anymore."
Negotiators for RosAtom and DOE failed to renew the deal in 2003 after the US side demanded a blanket liability exemption for Americans working on NCI projects, and the Russians balked. Earlier this year, the US acquiesced to the Russians. But whether it will be enough to interest Moscow in extending the deal remains highly uncertain, US officials and other observers say.
Even before the legal dispute, Moscow complained that NCI budgets in the $20 million range were too low, that much of the money was being spent in the US, and that highly qualified scientists were being re-trained to do low-level jobs like computer programmer and paramedic. But Russian security concerns may also have played a role.
"Access to closed cities was the biggest stumbling block. Russian secrecy paranoia still exists," says Gennady Pshakhin, an expert at the Institute for Physics and Power Engineering in the formerly closed city of Obninsk. He says if his institute - which specializes in civilian nuclear energy - invites a foreigner to visit, it must obtain clearance from President Vladimir Putin or Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov.
Supporters say the NCI made a big difference in some places, and could have done much more if more time and resources had been devoted. In Sarov - Russia's Los Alamos - NCI helped to close down one of the ex-USSR's biggest nuclear warhead factories, and turn it into a computer center that's now used by firms like Intel and Motorola. About 1,000 new jobs were created, Mr. Yudin says.
"The program really helped to diversify Sarov's economy; it changed peoples' mentality and helped to prepare them for the market," says Alexei Golubov, a former nuclear researcher who now works as an information analyst. "It was like a small window that opened onto the world for us."
Impelling NCI and other such programs is evidence over the years that Russian scientists might be willing to shop their skills to rogue regimes. In one reported 1992 incident, a planeload of Russian scientists was stopped by police "on the tarmac" as they embarked for North Korea. In 1998, an arms expert in Sarov was arrested by the FSB security service for allegedly spying for Iraq.
A study last year by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology surveyed the attitudes of 602 Russian nuclear, biological, and chemical WMD scientists. The study found that the mean income for such scientists was about $110 a month, and that 21 percent were willing to move to a "rogue nation" to work. As for the impact of assistance programs like NCI, the survey found 12 percent of those with grant funding would consider work in a rogue state, versus 28 percent without funding.
However, it's doubtful that any atomic experts could illegally leave Russia now, Pshakhin says.
"A lot of nuclear scientists are still underemployed, but things are a bit better," he says. "Nuclear scientists are under very strong monitoring. We are not allowed to move freely. Any attempt by a foreign power to recruit Russian scientists would immediately come to the attention of the FSB."
RosAtom chief Mr. Kiriyenko has announced plans for a sweeping revival of Russia's civilian atomic power industry. Military leaders also talk of putting weapons experts back to work.
Vladimir Fortov, head of the department of energy for the Russian Academy of Sciences, says that while Russia is returning some scientists to their old jobs, the NCI training programs remain valuable.
"They aided Russian-American mutual understanding, and it will be very unfortunate if they are discontinued," he says.

Если парламент ратифицирует предложенные правительством поправки к закону "О науке", Российская академия наук лишится автономии и попадет под плотный контроль государства.

Russia's venerable Academy of Sciences could soon come under tighter governmental control, if legislative changes made by the Cabinet last week are ratified by parliament.
On September 8, the Cabinet approved revisions to Russia's Law on Science that would give the national president final say over who is chosen to lead the Academy. The move comes as the Academy's 70-year-old president, Yury Osipov, is poised to step down.
"Under the new amendments, the elected president of the Academy is approved by the president, while the [academy] Charter is to be approved by the government," Osipov was quoted as saying by the ITAR-TASS news service.
The Cabinet's move will make the 282-year-old institution a "state academy." There had been media suggestions that its name would officially change to the State Academy of Science, but Osipov denied those rumors in an interview with ITAR-TASS on Tuesday.
The academy has been in existence since 1724, when it was established by Emperor Peter I. At the end of the Soviet era, in 1991, it became a self-governing scientific institution. Unlike small academies of science in the West, it is a huge network of research organizations totally funded by the state. Its budget is controlled by Academy members, which number about 1,000.
Reforms have been on the cards for some time, said Carthage Smith, deputy director of the International Council for Science, of which the Russian Academy is a member.
"The Russian Academy is different to many academies in that it is also a funding agency," he told The Scientist. "Funding agencies are often more directly linked to government than the traditional Western scientific academies."
Like other scientific academies in Eastern Europe, the Russian Academy needed to modernize in order to keep up with changes in the international science community, Smith said. Having said that, he added, "it's good for a country to have an independent science body to offer impartial advice" to authorities.
So far, neither the government nor the administration of the Academy has made an official statement to scientists about proposed changes, one researcher who asked not to be named told The Scientist.
He said the changes would likely have widespread ramifications, with the number of institutions administered by the academy diminishing, and the number of scientists drawing state salaries through it also dropping.
According to the Russian news service RBC News, the new bill is being finalized by the Science Ministry and the Russian Presidential Administration, and is expected to be submitted to the State Duma for consideration next week.
Britain's Royal Society, another long-established national academy, expressed some concern over the reports.
Stephen Cox, Executive Secretary of the Royal Society, said the two societies had been working particularly closely in recent years on the production of joint statements on climate change, African development, infectious diseases and energy security ahead of the G8 summits in Gleneagles and St. Petersburg.
"One of the main strengths of science academies, as demonstrated by these joint statements, is that they can offer authoritative advice to policy-makers that is independent of political, commercial or any other type of bias. It would be of great concern to the Royal Society if there were attempts to reduce the independence of any of its sister academies," he said in an email statement to The Scientist.

Томск посетила делегация Комиссариата по ядерной энергии Франции и компании "Inno". Целью визита была необходимость изучить возможность реализации в Томской области проекта под рабочим названием "Новая франко-российская модель коммерциализации в науке". Проект рассчитан на создание совместных производств и инновационных предприятий. Французскую сторону интересуют такие направления, как ядерная энергетика, химические технологии и материаловедение.

A visit of a delegation of French Commissariat on Nuclear Energy and the Inno Company to Tomsk has finished; a REGNUM correspondent was informed at Kemerovo regional administration press office. The delegation searched possibility to realize a project under working title "New French-Russian Model of Commercialization in Science" in Tomsk region. 
According to Tomsk region Vice Governor Vladislav Zinchenko, the French government examines several Russian regions - St. Petersburg, Nizhniy Novgorod, Obninsk, and Tomsk - to inplement this long-term, 5-6-year long project. At present, Tomsk region is the most preferred candidacy. The project's budget totals several millions of euros. Its main feature, which distinguishes it from previous ones, is the fact that it is aimed not at developing the infrastructure (offices of commercialization, centers of innovations' support, etc.) but at developing joint productions and innovating enterprises. The French side is interested in such aspects as nuclear energy, chemical technologies, and materials science.       
As a result of the visit, the delegation, headed by French Atomic Energy Commission Directorate on Global Partnership Programs Director on Strategic Marketing Christian Doll, will prepare a report. The report will predetermine decision of the French government concerning the region, where the project will start. Such decision is to be made till the end of 2006.

18-20 сентября в университете Лестера (Великобритания) прошел симпозиум, посвященный проблеме климатических изменений в Сибири.

Global warming experts are meeting at the University of Leicester (UL) from today until 20 September.
The world experts will discuss, among other topics, the danger posed to forests in Siberia by global warming and a culprit moth.
The Climate and Land Surface Systems Interaction Centre at the University of Leicester is hosting an international scientific symposium on "Environmental change in Siberia - Insights from Earth Observation and Modelling."
Scientists participating in the event will discuss a paper on the damage to trees by the Siberian moth outbreak.
A paper by Vladimir Petko to be delivered on Tuesday 19 September at the University's Conference Centre in Oadby discusses an integrated approach to monitoring of the Siberian moth population density.
University of Leicester Professor Heiko Balzter, who has studied satellite images of Siberia for the past eight years, said: "Siberia is a global hotspot in the climate system because the Siberian ecosystems are largely temperature-controlled and strongly affected by global warming.Large amounts of greenhouse gases are currently locked in the permafrost and in organic soils, and if released could accelerate the greenhouse effect."
"Russian scientists have found that in the years following the moth damage even the forest that does not burn, the soil releases a higher amount of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide due to increased microbial activity," Petko explained.
International insight for a northern hemisphere concern
Professor Balzter, of the UL Department of Geography, said the symposium would bring together Russian, British and European scientists from different disciplines to develop new information systems for scientists and policy makers.
"It is rare to get Russian experts on global warming to address conferences in the UK and on this occasion we have a specialist who has engaged in moth management programmes and will talk about the impact it has had as part of an overall strategy in reducing the impact of global warming. The Siberian land mass has a profound impact on the climate in the Northern Hemisphere, and large-scale changes like the melting of permafrost or an increase in extreme forest fire years could potentially accelerate global climate change," Balzter added.
Thirty participating scientists from the UK, Russia, Austria, France, Italy and Germany will present new findings on the rapid environmental changes occurring in Siberia at the University of Leicester over the next two days, 18-20 September.
They will use new satellite data of the vast forest tracts of Siberia in conjunction with Earth System models to provide evidence of the state of the environment.

Извечные вопросы, есть ли жизнь на Марсе и как она зародилась на Земле, обсуждали специалисты по изучению вечной мерзлоты во время международной конференции, посвященной состоянию криосферы Земли.

Is there any life on Mars? What is the origin of life on our planet? Scientists, who study permafrost, appear to have surprising answers to these questions.
Professor David Abramovich Gilichinsky (the head of soil cryology laboratory of RAS's institute of physicochemical and biological problems of soil science) claims there exists a direct correlation between Mars and cryological research - Earth's polar regions serve as a model of Solar system's planets, seven out of nine of which are of cryogenic type.
Fellows from said laboratory have discovered diverse microbial population in cores of frozen rocks of both hemispheres. These microbes inhabit rocks as cold as -20С in West Siberia and -270С in Antarctic polar deserts. The oldest samples are about 5 million years old (Antarctic region). The same pattern can be observed on Mars. If we suggest life existed there once, then its cell traces should have remained in permafrost. Mars is considered to be rich in water, frozen water, of course - this fact is proved by the HEND device, designed by Russian physicists from the Institute of Space Research and installed on the America "MARS-ODYSSEI" ship. Water, no matter frozen or not, means life on the cellular level. Cryobiologists do not expect to find aerobes, because Mars lacks oxygen, but they hope to find anaerobic microorganisms - those, able to live on CO2 and other compounds. Now scientists are developing original technologies for taking samples of Martian soil and rocks - they should know what results to expect.
As for permafrost and origin of life - there is a direct correlation. A new branch of science - astrobiology, which deals with life search among other problems - is quickly developing in biological research institutions all over the world. Humanity still lacks the exact theory of life's origin on our planet. Living cells could have arrived at the Earth from space and other planets via meteorites. Arctic and Antarctic permafrost is an ideal conservation site for meteorites, which could contain traces of life. What do alien microbes mean to us, when the permafrost melts? Soil cryology laboratory has won a contest to perform following experiments within BIOPAN project of European Space Agency - a capsule for biological experiments is located outside the "Photon" satellite, and samples of frozen rocks with their biota are placed there. Then the capsule opens, and samples become exposed to space radiation, etc. Control rock samples stay on Earth; some of them are irradiated after diversity, abundance and activity of said biota are measured - the aim is to find out biota's reaction to low temperatures and radiation.
After described samples returned to Earth, think-tank of the laboratory has compared microbe population of control and "space" samples and found that microorganisms that survived the "space stress" have changed considerably - both in abundance and diversity. Cells that degraded very much would have died, if the experiment lasted a bit longer than 15 days. But biologists tend to think that more cells would have survived, if the container walls have been a bit thicker. Thus, there still is the chance that life came to Earth from outer space - the answer will be more obvious in 2007, when the experiment is repeated in thicker container.
Professor Gilichinsky and his colleagues have published over 50 papers in leading international peer reviewed journals, including Science, and induced discussions in scientific circles around the world. The laboratory is a leader in cryological research and actively cooperates with international scientists, NASA and NSF, first of all. Russian scientists plan to perform DNA analysis of the biota to detect any possible changes and to find out reasons of microbes' degradation - we are looking forward to their new publications.

В последнее время широко обсуждается вопрос о российской национальной нанотехнологической программе. Такие программы разработаны во многих странах, и уже имеется успешный опыт их реализации. Свои соображения по этой проблеме излагает член-корреспондент РАН, профессор, заведующий лабораторией химического факультета МГУ им. М.В.Ломоносова Игорь Мелихов.

Igor Melikhov, a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and professor of Faculty of Chemistry of Moscow State University, comments on Russia's nanotechnology state-of-the-art.
Russia's nanotechnology programme is currently the issue of vivid discussions. The end of the past century brought world science community to the conclusion that human civilization can become totally different with substances, made of very small particles (nanometers in diameter), finding application in medicine, science and technology. World's interest in nanotechnology grew significantly - lots of new nanosubstances were developed, publication on nanotechnologies appeared in famous peer-reviewed journals, conferences and meetings on nanotechnologies became regular. Thus, the humanity is facing "nanotechnology boom" with over 50 developed countries participating.
Russia also shows an extreme interest in nanotechnology, though nanotechnologies have always been a hot issue here. Nineties of the previous century saw development of various nanomaterials with original properties, as well as the evolutional theory of nanodispersed substances' formation. The turn of the millennium was marked by another wave of nanoresearch - many laboratories were redesigned for nanotechnology needs, lectures on the subject appeared in many universities and institutes. Nevertheless, Russia is still well behind the United States and Japan in the efficiency of the programme. Our country seems to be out of the "nanotechnology boom" - so should we bother to take part in this new branch of science?
Current world nanotechnology research shows results, which being made public may cause major improvement of computing or military technology - that is why countries with nanoresearch centres are not longing for cooperation with others, but instead have their own national nanotechnology programme. The major part of the results obtained immediately becomes a "commercial secret", and only minor data and information have public access. Thus, Russia evidently has to participate in the nanotechnology research, because other countries give insufficient information on this cutting-edge scientific field. The point is that domestic research programme should consider Russia's specific character and by no means copy American or Japanese studies.
Here we need to say a few words about nanotechnology programmes of the United States and Japan and their possible application in our country. American science programme in nanoresearch is focused on simultaneous solving of all nanotechnology tasks. Such approach won't do in Russia, and there are two reasons for that. First, Russian science, which has recently survived a massive crisis, is unable to provide study front quickly enough. American "National Nanotechnology Initiative", for example, has over a thousand research trends in this science field. Russia needs some time to get involved. The second reason is funding, of course. American research in nanotechnology is provided with $1 billion of budget funds per year. Though the sum isn't very large for Russia, science fails to expect such state funding.
The reasons discussed make scientists concentrate on narrower range of research tasks. Japanese nanoresearch is as narrow as developing new information technologies and nanomaterials and searching for new applications of nanodispersed substances in medicine and environmental protection. Russia's possible scope in nanotechnology is population's life prolongation, solving demography problems, modernization of resource production and processing technique, modernization of industry and country defense efforts. Russian nanotechnologists should pay attention to a relatively small number of materials for military and double-purpose materials and highly effective nanopharmaceuticals for treating and preventing diseases, common in our country. Russian scientists already have achieved amazing results - for example, eliminating tumors by means of some nanodispersed substances and weak ultrasonic vibrations. National industry modernization implies development of new ecologically friendly methods for production of unique nanodispersed substances. Nanosystems also play an important role in petroleum processing and solving ecological problems.
Of course, mentioned scientific tasks require finances, but the result covers all expectations and definitely deserves proper attention from Russian state authorities.

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